Nitroglycerin blast at explosives factory probed

Police and fire service investigations have been launched in Pardubice-Semtín to determine the cause of a massive blast at an explosives factory that authorities believe killed four while injuring nine others.

An autopsy has been ordered after unidentified remains were discovered at the site, police spokeswoman Markéta Janovská said in a statement April 22.

Rescuers searching the scene with sniffer dogs said in the immediate aftermath of the blast there was unlikely to be any survivors, the Associated Press reported.

The blast occurred at the Explosia factory at around 7 a.m. April 20, destroying two plant buildings.

Jiří Simandl, a spokesman for the company, told The Prague Post that families struck by the tragedy were trying "to recover from the shock of the misfortune that happened to them and return to a normal way of life."

He said the company had received partial investigation results already, but that police had informed them they could not be made public.

Simandl said that the company believed the threat of knock-on explosions in the wake of the accident was no longer a factor.

The spokesman confirmed that production had restarted at the plant April 22, adding that renovation works on areas not part of the investigation were also under way.

He said he expected investigations of the cause of the blast "to reach some outcome in a week or two."

He declined to discuss compensation rates for workers and their families caught up in the disaster but said the company had "above-standard insurance that is about double the usual."

Police said they had summoned pyrotechnic specialists and other criminologists to the scene for their investigation, adding in a statement April 21 that police psychologists had offered their services to survivors and victims' families.

The fire service's investigation is concentrating on figuring out if the fire at the scene came before or after the blast, Vendula Horáková, a spokeswoman for the local fire service told The Prague Post.

"The task of the investigation team of the Fire Department of Pardubice is to examine the location of the incident and find out in the wrecks of the buildings if the fire started in the explosives factory and the explosion followed, or if the fire broke out after the explosion," Horáková said. She added that the fire department could not comment further until after the investigations were complete.

Witnesses in the spa town of Lázně Bohdaneč felt the force of the blast several miles away, with a number of shop windows being blown out by the explosion.

"The blast was so strong our whole flat was shaken. We thought it was just round the corner," one resident in the town told the Czech News Agency.

Explosia spokeswoman Jaroslava Doležalová said none of the nine injured persons was seriously hurt, and that most of them were treated at the scene for shock and minor cuts from glass shards.

Nitroglycerin, a liquid used in the production of explosives, is considered a dangerous substance that is unstable toward any external contact and can spontaneously explode from even minor mechanical or temperature influences.

Explosia used its warning information system to inform local authorities in Pardubice and the town of Lázně Bohdaneč, where the local mayor said he chose not to issue a public alert because the substance itself was not harmful and he wanted to avoid scaremongering. Environmental inspectors have also been informed.

Established to serve as a contractor for the Czechoslovak Army in 1920, Explosia made its name internationally as the maker of the plastic explosive Semtex.

Invented by a Czech scientist in the 1950s, the explosive takes its name from the Pardubice suburb of Semtín where the Explosia plant is situated and where Semtex was first manufactured in the 1960s. 

Today, Semtex makes up only a fraction of the company's output of gunpowder and other explosives for military, mining and construction clients.

An even larger explosion occurred at the same plant nearly 30 years ago, when a gunpowder store exploded May 28, 1984, killing five people and injuring 200 others.

- Klára Jiřičná contributed to this report.

Bill Lehane can be reached at
blehane@praguepost.com